MA Programme visit to London

Hello All,

thanks to all of those who managed to make it to London during Reading Week, I'm sure you'll all agree that we had a great time. The visits to the museums were stimulating and it was fantastic that Kim Sloan, Curator of the Enlightenment Galleries at the British Museum was able to speak to us about the rationale and the process of constructing the display and interpretation....here's a few of the students relaxing in the Great Court at the British Museum after some hard thinking!
We are off to Manchester this week, to the Manchester Art Gallery and the Imperial War Museum North.....
more anon...
Mark

Mobile Museums

The V&A have recently published an app called Tipu's iTiger, a simulation of an object in their collection that allows a distanced psudo-interaction with it's keyboard. There's a great video the 'real' noise it makes here. I'm struggling to decide what I think about this one, perhaps it does the work of imaginative projection when handling isn't possible, but there is something odd about digital mediation and the way in which a single object is given primacy above the rest of the collection. It might be an extension of the increasing use of iPod Touches (is that the plural?!) instead of audio guides in museums and galleries, but perhaps that's another thread.

2 day symposium

Hi everyone,

I thought this looked interesting, wondering if anybody is going along?

The Horniman Museum and the School of MuseumStudies at the University of Leicester 2 day Conference
Museum Curators and Communities:Embedded Approaches to Participation, Collaboration, Inclusion.26 – 27 November 2009

See http://www.le.ac.uk/ms/profdev/curcom.html

Cheers,
Sibyl.

'Questions of Collecting' Talk Series- SAB Gallery

The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery will be hosting several speakers speakers on themes of collecting over the coming months, in a series entitled 'Questions of Collecting' supported by the Centre for Critical Studies in Museums, Galleries and Heritage.

Coming up at the Gallery this month are

Tuesday, 10 November, 6pm: 'Collecting Contemporary Photography' - Gill Howard (Pavilion)

Tuesday, 24 November, 6pm: 'Collecting the Avant-Garde: Lascelles and Fawkes as patrons in the early nineteenth century' - Prof. David Hill (University of Leeds)

Free tea and coffee provided beforehand, and plenty of time for discussion/debate following! Hope to see you all there soon.

Exhibitions by our MA Students II

Hello All,
as promised, here's what the second MA Student Exhibition Group have been up to at the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery at the University........
their project was to install two new displays in the cases in one of the exhibition rooms at the gallery. They were dealing with some rare and fragile ceramic museum objects so the white gloves are not merely a fashion statement, but instruments of authority!......the students constructed their exhibiton displays with some very interesting narratives, directing attention to the sculptural, the painterly and the functionality of 18th century ceramics and highlighting their social and cultural use......There was some considerable deliberation on the aesthetics of display (as you can see!) but I think the results are quite striking (and informative)....do take a look and let us know what you think!











We will be returning to assess the effectivity of both the Ceramics Exhibition and the Sculpture Trail Exhibition at the end of the module.....work is always 'in progress'...
Mark

Exhibitions by Our MA Students

Hello All,

The Museum & Gallery studies Theory-Practice divide was collapsed last week, with the final installation of the student's exhibitions at the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery at Leeds University. Divided into two groups, the students divised two fantastic exhibitions......

A Sculpture Trail and A Ceramics Display....
...both exhibitions are now part of the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery displays. You can view them until early December...do go along and let us know what you think and post a note on here!

Here's the SCULPTURE GROUP, next to part ONE of their finished Sculpture Trail.....which explores the complex relationships between sculpural practices, materials and theories....you can even get invloved yourself and make a masterpiece!................The students got really involved in the processes of making the exhibition itself...as you can see...........................Looks like the Blue Peter Studio!............there's more to come (when I get the pics) on the CERAMICS GROUP Exhibition project....
Mark

Museums and Critique

At last I've managed to find some moment to Blog...(it's been a bit manic this semester...) anyway, it appears that at the heart of Rebecca's post on 'Bigger Splash' (and Hattie's reflective comment) is the suggestion of a kind of ambivalence (I liked the arm wrestling your dad analogy) towards critique...it's rather like the museum (or in this case the RA) was openly inviting critique only in the acknowledgment that such critique merely acts to reinforce its own position and authority? There's a distinct connection here with the stuff that Banksy and Bristol Art Gallery did a few weeks ago (did you go Rebecca?)...thousands of people queued round the block to see a metaphorical stoning of their grandmother...the stones turned out to be sponges (and they weren't even wet ones!), so no damage was done.....I'm sure there's more to be said on this thread?

mark